Wonder
by Mitchie Love
Summary: What I think happened in the balloon with Hector. Don't read if you have not read up to THE GRIM GROTTO. May spoil. & I haven't finished the series, so it might not be accurate. NOT ROMANCE.


**I did this for school & thought I'd post it here. It really sucks, I'm warning you. WOW. I sound like Mr. Snicket. Oh, well.**

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You may have wondered what happened after Isadora and Duncan flew away in that balloon with Hector.

Well, I will tell you. However, if you don't like to read about children wishing they were in a place where there was a bully that called them cakesniffers because they are flying in a balloon for the rest of their lives and possibly lost their only friends, and remembering when they had been smuggled out of the country dressed forcefully as puppies and put in the back of a dreadful place (the back of a plane), you must not read on.

This is your last warning. If you found this on the floor or the garbage, I suggest you leave it there and go your joyful way and read _Mary-Jane Goes to the Prom_ instead.

The triplets flew away in the balloon as Violet, Sunny and Klaus tried to catch the pages of their notebooks. The triplets yelled in frustration, "V.F.D means Volunteer Fire Department!" but all the Bauldelaires where able to hear was "…volunteer…"

Isadora slammed herself on the floor and crossed her arms, "So, we're going to float in this thing for the rest of our lives?"

"Yes," Hector said, not knowing if to be happy or sad about it.

"Great," Duncan said sarcastically, sitting next to his sister. "Now how are we going to know if the Bauldelaires are okay?"

Hector looked at them without a word. He looked right over them to see the crows flying everywhere. He thought for a few minutes before saying, "They're okay."

"Like Quigley? Well, he _is_ dead after all," Isadora said remembering her brother who had died along with their parents in the fire, but his body had never been found. Skittish as always, Hector didn't respond.

"_Is this how live ends?_

_Losing our brother, losing our friends?_"

Isadora recited. She reached in her pocket for her notebook, then remembered she threw it down when the Bauldelaires jumped off the balloon. She sighed and sat back, wishing they were again at that austere academy. They didn't care anymore about the painful violin recitals Vice Principal Nero sat them through, or even Carmelita Spats. They didn't care about her going around calling them cakesniffers (what in the world did cakesniffer mean anyway?).

They would have preferred it all to losing their friends, probably the only people they had left in the world. She didn't care looking at the Momento Mori either, which almost reminded her of the Holocaust, except the words meant remember you will die, almost as if assuring the prisoners they will after all, die.

_Maybe they already burned them at stake, _She thought, remembering that the village thought that Violet, Sunny and Klaus had killed Jacques Snicket, even though they hadn't. Count Olaf had, to keep him quiet from something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"We're not alone," Duncan said, almost reading her mind. "You have me, I have you, and we've got Hector. Right, Hector?"

"Right," Hector said trailing off, still looking at the crows.

"If the Village Of Fowl Devotees meant so much to you, why did you leave? Just so you can break the rules?" Duncan asked, breaking into Hector's thoughts.

"I was tired of living in a place where nothing was allowed. Who honestly makes so many stupid rules? No using machinery, no reading books where the characters use machinery. On top of that, if you break a rule, they burn you. I have a question for you: why do they think it's okay to burn people?!" Hector answered, a little louder than he would have wanted.

"I guess only a dunce would think of that," Isadora said, standing up, looking at the direction Hector had been looking at, but not to see the crows, to see the vile village where their friends had to stay, and where they had been imprisoned inside a giant bird fountain.

"Dunce?" Hector asked, confused by the word.

"Idiot," Duncan said.

"Only because I don't know the meaning of dunce?" Hector asked, defending himself even though it wasn't necessary.

"No! Dunce means idiot," Duncan explained and leaned back on the balloon. He closed his eyes and remembered when Count Olaf had kidnapped them and forced them into puppy costumes to snuggle them out. Now he knew why animal owners hated to leave their animals alone. The back of the airplane was cold, dark, and no one would ever enjoy it there. The seats in the plane, unless you're first class, are pretty uncomfortable. Especially when you have the guy that stretches every five minutes, the one that falls asleep on you, and to your dismay, drools.

Once, I had to adopt the secret identity of Daniel Handler in order to sneak out of the country because my enemies were after me trying to get my very fascinating dictionary. Not because they wanted to learn the meaning of a word, but because I hid something you shouldn't know about. I boarded a plane to a place I cannot tell you about. I sat next to a man who stretched every five minutes, and another one who slept through the whole flight snoring and drooling on top of me. It was perhaps not the most pleasant thing to be doing with five hours of your time, but I had no choice.

It's sad, because right now, I'm under a bed trying to type very slowly on my typewriter so that the family I am with doesn't know I'm here in an undercover mission to get these books out in the world, which I suggest that after you read this, you close the books and burn them so that no one else can read about the unfortunate events in the lives of these poor children. You will be traumatized for life.

"Duncan, do you think that maybe, you know, Quigley didn't die?" Isadora asked randomly breaking the silence. There wasn't a response. "Duncan?"

"Huh?" Duncan asked in confusion, snapping out of his dream.

"Do you think Quigley might still be alive?" Isadora asked.

"Chances are very vague, to be honest," Duncan replied.

"They never found his body," Isadora said, looking at her triplet with hopeful eyes.

"Maybe," was all Duncan could say, as his sister sat next to him again giving him a hug. "Maybe."

I must stop writing now, not only because someone in the family said they have heard some noise and are now looking around the hotel room to find rats, but because in my research about Isadora and Duncan, I have not found what else this conversation had led to. All I know is that they flew up in the balloon for a while and wondered if they would ever see their friends, Violet, Sunny and Klaus, again.

The triplets also got their hopes up on their brother, Quigley, being alive and possibly seeing him again. You know, that kind of instinct that twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuples, sextuplets, septuplets, octuplets, and so on get.


End file.
